Saturday, October 21, 2017

Seems that it is somewhat difficult to find a simple solid color wallpaper for an Android tablet. I just bought the ASUS ZenPad and I was unable to find a simple one color wallpaper to replace the default wallpaper. In looking for how to replace the default wallpaper, it appeared that many others also had the same frustration. Given that, one would think that having a no wallpaper option would be easily available. Well it wasn't.

After doing some searching, I was able to find a plain black wallpaper at this website: Black Solid Color Background. This website also offers other solid colors. Of course I need to add the disclaimer that what worked for me, might not work for you.

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Raqqa, the erstwhile capital of ISIS, has been liberated. Here is the New York Times article reporting on the event: Raqqa, ISIS ‘Capital,’ Is Captured, U.S.-Backed Forces Say. Good news one would think. But think again, this is the Middle East that we are talking about. The pending defeat of ISIS means that the "shifting sands" of current alliances will shift. That process appears to have started.

One would have hoped that the defeat of ISIS would be a step towards a more peaceful Middle East. Instead it appears that Iraq, Iran, and Turkey may begin to take coordinated military action to prevent the emergence of an independent Kurdistan. The Kurds deserve world support for an independent Kurdistan.

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Hillary Clinton, expecting to win the 2016 US presidential election, smugly with an air of moral superiority arrogantly proclaimed that challenging the validity of the election results would be a threat to democracy.

Guess what she lost and is now questioning the validity of the election results. Hillary has unveiled herself as being the threat to democracy.

It is quite unfortunate that the media, in the face of all this smoke and mirrors by Hillary and the Democrats, have failed to write articles exposing Hillary's deceit. The media lamely regurgitates Hillary's misleading disinformation. Where is the media's quest for the truth and critical thinking's skills?

Time for the media, assuming that they have any integrity left, to expose Hillary's disingenuous hateful rumor-mill as a case of sour grapes. Hillary, by endlessly churning this deceitful narrative in the elusive hope of finding a "hook" is the threat to democracy. Hillary is pathetic. Hillary lost the election.

Sunday, July 30, 2017

Its been a bad week for the Republicans. Their attempts to repeal the ACA (AKA Obamacare) went down to ignominious failure. In part, the Republicans failed due to a lack of party discipline as a consequence of unrelenting acrimonious squabbling amongst themselves.

The Republicans have failed to govern. They had seven years to formulate the repeal of the ACA and they "blew it". One would have thought, given their seven year lead time, that the Republicans would have had their act together. Guess not. Criticism of the Republican efforts is justified.

But, there is another view point to the health care debacle. Like the Republicans, the Democrats also had seven years to propose a fix to the ACA. They have failed to do so.

Both the media and the Republicans have been silent on raising the issue that the Democrats have avoided, over seven years, to propose legislative fixes to the ACA. Surprising since this would provide the Republicans with the opportunity to shift blame for the health care debacle to the Democrats.

The Democrats and the media have been mocking the Republicans for their inability to put forward a coherent plan to repeal the ACA. While these derisions of Republicans by the Democrats may seem appropriate they actually point to a major difference between how the Republicans and Democrats approach governance.

From the perspective of a democratic process, the squabbling of the Republicans is actually a good thing. They are openly discussing in a public forum how to get a piece of legislation passed. Unfortunately it did not turn out well.

From the perspective of a democratic process, the Democrats are an autocratic organization. No dissension is allowed. (Three Republican Senators cited their conscience as the reason not to go along with the rest of the party, but not one Democrat was willing to break with the party line even-though the ACA is a failing abomination.) Essentially each Democratic Congressperson seems to be a mindless robot implementing the dictates of the party leadership. That is not good, in terms of the democratic process and resulted in the passage of the abomination known as the ACA back in 2010.

The health care issue is not dead, but note the dynamics. The Democrats ridicule the Republican efforts but never actually suggest their own solution. The reason is obvious, dirty politics by the Democrats. The Democrats know that the Republicans have failed so they (Democrats) will sit back and do nothing hoping that the Republicans will come crawling to them. The Democrats have no interest in compromising with the Republicans, even if that means letting their prized piece of legislation (the ACA) fail. The Democrats are deplorable.

Friday, January 13, 2017

Windows 10 periodically (without notification) resets certain defaults when system updates occur. That can be quite irritating when it affects your computing operations in either Windows and/or Linux. In the most recent update, the the "fast shutdown" feature for Windows 10 was reactivated. This has the unfortunate effect of leaving the computer's hard drive in a state of hibernation that precluded Ubuntu from booting.

There is no obvious indication when shutting down Windows 10 that the "fast shutdown" feature was placed into effect. Previously, I had turned it off at least a couple of times. Since it does not happen often, I forgot how to identify and solve this issue. I
spent a couple of fun filled hours dwelling on this before realizing what happened. A tutorial
concerning how to fully shutdown Windows 10 is located here. How to fully shut down Windows 10. An additional article for additional thoughts: The Pros and Cons of Windows 10’s “Fast Startup” Mode.

Following the advice of that tutorial solved the problem and Ubuntu once
again boots successfully. Should you have the same problem, I hope that
his helps.

Another approach is to mount the Windows 10 partition in read-only mode. /etc/fstab code sample below: